During installation or maintenance of two devices connected via cables, there exists a possibility that the cables might be cross connected. Moreover, as the number of cables increases, so does the chance that a cable may be connected to the wrong connector. The potential for incorrectly making connections may be especially high if the hardware installers are not professionally trained, if the location of the equipment is somewhat difficult to reach or access, and/or if the lighting conditions are less than favorable at the time of working with the components.
Cross-connecting one or more components may cause the device to not operate and thus increase the overall installation, maintenance time, testing time, and/or decrease customer satisfaction. Therefore, a variety of methods have been used to alleviate this situation. One method for preventing incorrect cable interconnections is to provide different connector types on each of the signal paths making it physically impossible to connect the cables to the wrong port. This method has a significant drawback in that it involves the use of a number of custom cables with custom connectors. The use of custom cables increases production costs, and becomes an inconvenience to installers who are then forced to carry a number of different cable types. This disadvantage becomes significantly worse as the number of cables increases.
Another prior art technique for preventing incorrect cable connections involves using color codes or labels on the cables and/or the components. Such techniques still depend on the care taken to match the labels, the durability and readability of the labels, and the accuracy of the labeling. Other physical methods of preventing incorrect cable connections have been used, but they generally suffer from the same deficiencies.
Thus, it is desirable to have a system, method and apparatus for preventing incorrect cable interconnections without special cables or connector types.